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University Dally Kansan, September 9, 1981
Opinion
Window washing cleanses the soul
I never understood why I found comfort in washing windows until I read Ernest Hemingway's short story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." The story made me feel like the man who suddenly realizes he isn't crazy. Apparently, there is some causal relationship between Catholic guilt and a desire for cleanliness and light.
I first washed windows as a "Sunsheen Boy" in Boxem, Mont. I volunteered for the job because of guilt about not working while in college. As a washer of windows, I would often lay in bed on dark, sleepless nights and watch all kinds of clean glass. But my most remarkable experience with windows occurred two years later in Lawrence.
One Saturday morning while I washed the front windows of the furniture store where I
KEVIN HELLIKER
work, I found a scene I'd been in search of for nearly a week.
It was a love scene. Days earlier, I'd been told one of my short stories was missing a crucial love scene. In writing the story, I had stepped around it.
So I spent five feverish days trying to write a good love scene. All my possibilities were either of the Humphrey Bogart Power-Play nature, or the Pornographic Purely for nature. By Friday night, my creativity was bound tight, so I despairingly gave up.
In the losing tradition, I escaped to a bar with friends and proceeded to blow away my anguish. Subconciously, this was planned. I'd found that if you could lose yourself in the hangs of drunkenness, out of the next morning's hangover would rise a strange new beginning.
This day would be the glorious and guilt-ridden first of my "TI-never-gut-drunk-again" life. And喂-beer-sick bottom is an awfully low place from which to start, it is also the level at which there is often the most hope.
Being Catholic, I'm programmed to start each new beginning with a bit of penance. Though I felt sick, weary and dazed at work I went on vacation, I decided that it was time to wash windows.
"Father!" Helliker watched me fill a bucket with hot water and hair. He eyed me while I gathered towels, squeegees and a ladder. Once I'd set up shop on the deserted downtown, early-morning sidewalk, he left and I picked up my tools and worked.
While washing windows, I never think, or if I do, I not aware of it. The process of washing windows requires the use of a
squeegee the window clean commands my attention as indulged as if I were wiping clay from an ancient artifact. When, some 30 minutes into this morning's work, a love scene began to materialize in the glass, I was amazed by what thought as an awestruck, innocent child.
A young man and woman appeared through the window in a patch of forest. As the couple gradually merged, the trees in the forest pounded toward them until the whole scene converged and briefly hug together, then spread back out. When the vision had disappeared, I was left with this simple yet shining thought: a good love scene demands that the characters genuinely lose themselves in each other.
I climbed down the ladder and ran to write down what I'd seen, but just inside the door I found my boss laughing. He had been standing on the opposite side of the glass, watching my facial expressions change and waving his hands. I didn't even see him.
"Your decisions to wash windows," he concluded, would not correspond to someone of your think.
I started to tell him about my alcoholic girl whom been washed away like the filth on the window.
"Windows," I said finally, "are good for reflection."
And thus the mystery of the choir: washing windows puts mental labor to rest, yet at the same time broadens spiritual knowledge and enhances inner peace. The importance of clean glass to the well-being of human souls is evidenced in John Prine's song, "Souvenir's."
Broken hearts and dirty windows.
That's why last night and this morning always look the same to me.
Clean windows, then, help us to see the days and ways of our lives more clearly. For me, the act of washing windows is a form of prayer. For if the body is the keeper of the soul, then prayer must involve the process of cleaning one's windows, of keeping one's world view undistorted by the frustrations and sorrows of life on Earth.
And like prayer, washing windows has its unexpected rewards. Quite often, in that first bright second, we are privy to our greatest challenge. We imprise. Then the dust begins to gather again.
It may well be that, as a washer of windows,
I am compulsive and illogical. But somehow
my transgressions seem diminished, my
penance finished, once I've made some place
cleaner and more well-lighted than the whole
dark universe outside our panes of glass.
Letters to the Editor
Panhellenic council clarifies policy forbidding all hazing
To the Editor:
In regard to Cindy Campbell's Sept. 3 column, we would like to assert the KU Panhellenic Association's position on "hazing";
"All forms of hazing, pledging-day activities and/or pre-initiation activities that would reflect unfavorably on the fraternity system and its members shall be banned. Any violation will be dealt with by the Judiciary Committee."
"Hazing," as defined by Panehlenci, is "any mental or physical harassment."
Unfortunately, the column implied that such practices are widespread among KU's 13 residential sororities.
We are not so naive as to believe that all embarrassing incidents have been eliminated, but we constantly stress that houses abandon such things because the growth and development of each member
Any woman who feels that she has been the victim of "hazing" has the right to register a confidential complaint with Panhellenic. In fact, we encourage it.
We have not received such a complaint for as many years as our records detail.
Sororites are independent organizations governed by their chapter members and national organizations. Panbellenic does not have the right to step into their internal business on the basis of rumor. An actual complaint must be registered for action to be taken.
We cannot speak for fraternities, but we are making every effort to eliminate this degrading and embarrassing problem and to maintain a strong sense of our members and the University can be proud of.
The KU Panhellenic Association Executive Council Sara Snyer, president
Math section lost
To the Editor:
I have just experienced one of the most frustrating facets of this year’s enrollment. I had been invited to take Math 136, an honors section of Math 116. After one week, however, the class was canceled. There was an overflow of Math 116 students, and our teacher was reassigned from students to help relieve the Math 116 load. That was unfortunate, but understandable.
What I fail to understand is why there was no Math 116 course reserved for me at the same time I had Math 138. I was not enrolling later, per request from a teacher who was very difficult and opted to take the regular course
instead. It was quite aggravating to try to get into a class at that time, only to find out that it was closed, and that all other available times conflicted with my present schedule.
One week into the semester is too late to be making major schedule changes. I had no time to juggle classes, so I found a history course that would fit into my schedule, just to cover the history. We already missed four class sessions, and I'm not particularly interested in the course anyway.
Is the student responsible when a course he has been invited to take is canceled after class begins? Should he bear the brunt of hasty schedule realignment, falling behind in classes he didn't want to take in the first place? I hardly think so.
I believe that the student should either be granted clearance into a corresponding class at the time of the one canceled, or he should have the opportunity to know before classes start that the course will no longer be offered. A preenrolment system would seem to be the perfect solution.
David Cooper
Derby sophomore
Gives us helmets
To the Editor:
My hat is off to the philanthropic wilt of Kari Elliott, sudden-born critic of architectural form and function. She, as some may know, revealed the true nature of her exasculus flaws of Watson's new front stairway.
Yes, it was her scratulous eyes that espied the hazards of Watson's frontal renovation, her flashing pen that so warned us of the dangers waiting thereabouts, waiting to bruise the innocent thigh or calf, 'soft and supple' 'victim to stone. Fie upon those responsible for carelessly casting those angled rocks, sinister devices and violators of our walking rights.
Action, and I demand it, must be taken, direct avenues of correction pursued. Then for this cause I recommend two suggestions to the administrative forces. First, distribute football helmets to all students, expelling those who refuse to wear them while on campus. In this way we may all amble into countless walls and corners, yet never know that pain. Second, but perhaps less reasonable, wash all sinister objects with precious foam padding. Perhaps then we kluttes could stumble our way, free from fear, from the terror of on-campus collisions.
Let not their threat unmuffed, stone and steel bumps, paws of careless design!
Letters policy
The University Daily Kansan welcomes letters to the editor. Letters should be typewritten, double-spaced and not exceed 500 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. If the writer is affiliated with the University, the letter should include the class and home town or faculty or staff position. The Kanan reserves the right to edit or reject letters.
Paul Dorrell Olathe senior
U.S. and Saudis benefit from sale of AWACS
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Last summer in Washington must have been dreadful for many legislators.
Sweltering heat, sky-high real estate increases and stunning presidential victories caused many a collar to wear. And now, following a month-long strike by workers, the number of military battles worthy of hot debate.
Foremost for the Reagan administration will be the fight over the proposed sale to Saudi Arabia of five AWACS surveillance planes, seven fuel— tanker aircraft, Sidewinder air-to-air
DAVID HENRY
missiles and 22 ground-based radars. Congress was given the standard notification of the $8.5 billion sale Aug. 24 and has until Oct. 30 to veto the proposal. Unless a majority of both houses approve, the sale is automatic. Both sides willingly admit, however, that a fight is inevitable.
Yet anyone who even glances at a newspaper or television knows the United States sells arms to its allies. Why then the ruckus over Saudi and the sandy land with $32-barrel oil? And what are the consequences if Congress gives Reagan and the Saudis thumbs down on the deal?
Saudi Arabia has been a long-time friend of the United States. It has always shared America's resistance to communism, using "economic and political muscle to oppose Soviet influence in the Middle East," according to one Saud observer. In light of increasing Soviet intervention in Libya, Iraq, Ethiopia and South Yemen, our alliance with the Saudis is valuable.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia, by deliberately producing far above world oil market demands, has kept the price of OPEC oil at a level that will not cripple the United States and other Western economies. And the Saudis themselves currently charge $4 to $5 a barrel less than other OPEC countries, at an estimated daily loss of $40 million per day.
The answer is Saudi Arabia's northern neighbor, Israel. It objects to the sale of American weapons to any Arab state. It objects particularly to the latest air-to-air missiles and bombs used in Iraq. But it would object even more vigorously had its supply of American weapons been curtailed.
All of this underlines Saudi loyalty. So why do we find strong resistance in Congress to the RULES?
Following the Israeli bombings on Iraq and Beirut with American-supplied aircraft, Reagan impounded new aircraft destined for Israel. Yet
Reagan has indicated that he intends to work as hard for this proposal as he did for his tax and budget cuts. And Israel has stepped up its Washington lobby.
in a matter of weeks, the ban was lifted. Had Reagan tried to penalize Israel by holding up the sale any longer, he almost certainly would have been defeated in Congress by a wide margin. In short, Israel believes it is America's only reliable Mideast military and political asset and it intends to use its powerful lobby to keep the Saudis at bay.
However, an administration report states that the proposed sale to Saudi Arabia is the "cornerstone" for the Reagan policy of reviving American "strength and credibility" in the region. It wisely contends that arming Saudi Arabia is "the best long-term guarantee of the Israel as well as to the other states in the area wishing to remain free of Soviet pressure."
So the forces are readied: Reagan's refusal to regard Israel as America's only Midaset asset versus the powerful pro-Israel lobby on Capitol Hill.
For Congress to bow to Israeli pressure now could have diplomatic costs outweighing the military consequences. At last month's OPEC meeting, the Obama administration in order to keep the price of oil at $23 a barrel.
At a time when the other members wanted to increase oil's price by at least $8, Saudi Arabia threatened to step up its oil production in order to drive down the price should such a move be implemented. The other OPEC countries reluctantly agreed to the Saudi demand. But increasingly, the Saudis are finding themselves isolated from their Arab neighbors.
Not surprisingly, this pro-American policy has been scorned by the more militant OPEC members. American refusal to supply the weaponry would be a humiliating sign to other Arab countries that the Saudi-U.S. friendship is scarcely two-ways. For while the Saudis are making concessions to America, Americans in effect, really don't trust the Saudis. And most
If the sale is blocked, the Saudis have indicated similar equipment is available from France or England. Saudi Arabia can easily afford to take its business elsewhere and the United States could withstand the loss of additional military revenue. But the diplomatic damage done the Saudi government has cost the money. Rather, as strong American allies, they should sell a sale as a sign of good faith. American refusal of the deal will undoubtedly strain our relations with Saudi Arabia.
importantly, a congressional veto would be further proof of Israel's overriding influence on
The outcome will show whether Israel does indeed determine U.S. policy in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a big player.